Metered Access

Crain's Detroit Business is a metered site. Print and digital subscribers have unlimited access to stories, but registered users are limited to eight stories every 30 days. After viewing three metered stories, you'll be asked to register or log in. After eight more stories in 30 days, you'll be asked to subscribe.

Nearly $1 million raised to fund young cancer researchers

RESEARCH FUND DONORS

A group of 16 local philanthropists and a foundation has committed just under $1 million to provide fellowships to young Michigan cancer researchers. William Campbell, founder of W.Y. Campbell & Co., is founding chairman of the Michigan Cancer Research Fund, operating as an initiative of the American Cancer Society, Great Lakes Division. The others are:

Sixteen local philanthropists and a foundation have committed just under $1 million between 2009 and 2013 to provide three-year fellowships to young Michigan cancer researchers who otherwise would go unfunded.

The group's aim is not only to put money behind valid research projects but also to ensure a continuing pipeline of local cancer researchers.

Without initial funding, “the young ones who have viable research projects ... otherwise might leave cancer research and do something else,” said William Campbell, founding chairman of the Michigan Cancer Research Fund and founder of Detroit-based investment firm W.Y. Campbell & Co.

The research fund, operating as an initiative of the American Cancer Society, Great Lakes Division, also gives its donors a more intimate way to fund cancer research. They tour labs, pick a new researcher to fund each year from among three vetted by the ACS, and receive annual updates on the successes and failures of those researchers.

“People who are just looking to write a check, we'd love to have their money,” Campbell said. “But what we're looking for are people who want to know more about cancer research and want to have a hands-on experience with cancer research.

“We're trying to bring cancer research into the same deliverables that cancer care has always had. ... I'm a businessperson, I want accountability and measurability,” he said.

Campbell so far has persuaded 16 others to contribute to the research fund and to have a hand in picking the research it supports.

Each has committed at least $50,000 over five years to the fund, totaling about $900,000 so far to support research that the ACS deems valuable but cannot fund.

Some researchers in the initial stage of their work, looking at rare types of cancer, for example, typically get lower funding priority during ACS peer reviews of research funding proposals and fall into a “pay if funds are available” category.

In 2008, the ACS, Great Lakes Division could not fund 20 percent of the research grant proposals it received.

“We fund as many grant applications as we possibly can with the resources we have,” said Jill Elder, senior executive director of Southeast Michigan for the ACS, Great Lakes Division.

“Since we have this group that's invested and willing to fund this research ... we're trying to stimulate more grant proposals from young researchers in Michigan.”

The ACS, Great Lakes Division, which serves Michigan and Indiana, posted total revenue of $42.5 million in 2009, down 12 percent from the year before, Elder said.

About 15 percent of the division's total revenue is directed to research, with the remainder supporting prevention, detection and treatment, patient support and fundraising and operational expenses, said communications manager Kate Dietrich.

Early this year, the Michigan Cancer Research Fund awarded its second postdoctoral fellowship of $150,000 over three years to David DeGraff, who earned his doctorate at the University of Michigan but since has moved to Vanderbilt University, where he is researching androgen blockade resistance in the development of new treatments for specific forms of prostate cancer.

Last year, the fellowship went to Huira Kopera, who also earned her doctorate at UM and is focusing on increasing the understanding of genetic mutations leading to the formation of diseases such as cancer.

Young people leaving Michigan is becoming a real problem, Campbell said.

“Our goal is to reinvest in ... and support Michigan ... whenever possible. There are good young cancer research people here,” he said.

Gary Hammer arrived at UM in 1999 as a junior faculty member/assistant professor, on the heels of late UM football coach Bo Schembechler's quest to raise funds for adrenal cancer research after his wife, Millie, lost her battle with the disease.

In spite of those efforts, it was difficult to obtain continued or substantial funding for adrenal cancer research at that point, said Hammer, who today is the Millie Schembechler Professor of Adrenal Cancer and director of the endocrine oncology program at the UM Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“Because adrenal is such a rare cancer, it's difficult to get a cohort of patients of sufficient size to be meaningful in research,” Hammer said.

For that reason, the return on investment for that type of research also is perceived as small, and many large funders of cancer research shy away from it, Hammer said.

“For the government to fund adrenal cancer, they (would be) taking money away from something like breast cancer, which affects a much larger number of people.”

By 2003, Hammer was looking at the prospect of having to leave UM for lack of major research funding. It was then that the ACS stepped up with $750,000 to $1 million, giving Hammer his first independent research grant.

He quickly obtained a second grant from the National Institutes of Health, and the program in adrenal cancer at UM began to flourish.

“The ACS took a risk with me — it did not just save my career. It launched this program into national prominence,” Hammer said.

Today, UM sees between 25 percent and 50 percent of the country's adrenal cancer patients, and others come from as far away as Hong Kong, Austalia and Europe, he said.

“We are now poised to help lead international efforts with large industry-sponsored trials with new targeted therapies for adrenal cancer.”